Utah Football’s COVID-19 Situation Reportedly Improving

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – According to reports, Utah football’s COVID-19 situation is improving as they hope to face USC this Saturday at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Utah is the only FBS team that has a schedule in place that is yet to suit up and play in a college football game in 2020.

According to Pac-12 Insider Jon Wilner of the Bay Area News Group, Utah’s situation is improving. Wilner reported that players are coming out of quarantine, the roster is more robust and the team is scheduled to practice on Monday.

#Pac12 source: Utah's situation improving, players coming out of quarantine, roster more robust – team scheduled to practice today.

— Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline) November 16, 2020

Utah’s season opener against Arizona on Saturday, Nov. 7 was canceled after the Utes had multiple players and staff members test positive for COVID-19. They went below the minimum amount of scholarship players – which according to the Pac-12 guidelines is 53 players – in order to participate in a game.

After a couple more positive tests early last week, the Utes had zero positive COVID-19 tests on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, the team had another positive case and fell below the threshold and had to cancel their road game against UCLA.

Head coach Kyle Whittingham did not hold his weekly press conference on his usual Monday morning. Whittingham is scheduled to hold his press conference on Tuesday morning. KSL Sports was told that Whittingham not addressing the media on Monday did not indicate any update with the team either way.

Utah is scheduled to face USC on Saturday, Nov. 21 at 8:30 p.m. on ESPN.

Trevor Allen is a Utah Utes Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Crimson Corner podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @TrevorASports. You can download and listen to the podcast, here.